Spoken Word Poem

I was sitting in a classroom

With two good friends

In an after-care program

That took place after school ends.

We were talking just like normal

So I felt right in place

When one of them said something

And I almost felt erased.

She said she’d pick the other friend

That it was Allison who “got her” more

And I’ve only just now realized

What I didn’t know before.

That she’ll never know I “get her”

If I never let her “get me”

I’m always so closed off

So there’s this part that people don’t see.

That they don’t know.

They don’t know.

They don’t know.

That in my head there are

Fireworks

That ricochet off my

Skull

And sometimes they are

Beautiful

But also very

Loud

And those fireworks are

Passion

And I feel them in my

Bones

But they never seem to

Stop

So I always feel a-

lone -

No, not really alone

There are people around me

Always

But they don’t know

What I

Know.

And the fireworks get

bigger

but they never

explode

I’m a tiger in a cage

One that nobody can see

Because that cage is my head

And the tiger is me.

And I know if I could

Let go

It would all turn out just

Fine

But my head won’t let me

Do that

So the tiger waits in

Line.

Because the truth is

Fireworks were not meant to be contained.

What they don’t know, they don’t know, they don’t know,

Is the tiger.

They don’t know.

But I want them to.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Wipeout

One thing that the group did very well was making each character very distinct in the way they moved and the way they went through the obstacle course. Giving each one their own song to match them was also a good way to make each one unique. It was really funny to watch each one play out and I liked the effects they added. Hunter did a good job as the old man and the fat man - he added a lot of physical comedy while he was going through the obstacle course and really stayed in character. Sarah’s characters (the nerd and the little girl) were also both very funny, especially the little girl at the end. She made her look very happy and carefree. I also likes how her first character kept reading the book until the very end. Jordan did a really good job after he shot himself in the foot - he was very dramatic and the music also made it a lot funnier.

The group could have added more of an ending to the show, rather than just finishing after the little girl. They could have announced the winner or had the person who finished go last instead of having it happen so early on. Some of the songs with a lot of words were a little distracting and kind of took away from the purpose of the silent movie. The ones without words seemed to match the characters better because they sounded less like songs you might listen to in your free time and more like a theme song playing for each character. The words weren’t always relevant to what was actually going on in the movie - like the song from Tangled at the end - even if they fit the mood and feel of the character.

Silent Movie Reflection

Making a silent movie was very different from the other projects we’ve done so far, in that there were a lot of different aspects that I’d never covered before. Because there was no dialogue we had to tell the story completely through actions, especially because we didn’t use any text slides. We had to convey a lot through our expressions and exaggerate more than we normally would (like inserting clips of me with an evil face) to show what was really happening, otherwise parts of the plot might get lost. Another thing that we’d never done before is work with a camera to get shots from several different angles, though I was disappointed that some of our final clips didn’t end up in the final draft - the part where I take off my disguise and knock out Erin was replaced by an earlier clip that wasn’t as good. This also allowed us to retake shots that we didn’t like or wanted to improve. Adding the music and editing clips to speed them up allowed us to make scenes funnier or create a different mood, and I liked that we got to make up the plot.

    We could have improved on drawing out our scenes and making them longer. We really just did the scene, and as long as it went well we put it into the final draft. As a result we didn’t focus much on using the right body language or maximizing the comedic effect. I wish we had done more takes of the beginning scene because I would have liked to have worked more on taking off the disguise and being more dramatic about it. I also think that if we had all had had a part in editing the video we could have gotten in the clips that didn’t end up in the video. We probably could have also worked out getting the video of Erin and I at the beginning to alternate with the part where Maddie robs the bank.

    I thought I did a good job emphasizing my movements when there was a lot of action going on, like during the scene where I trip and the chase scene.

Candy Shop Skit Reflection

    The biggest difference between performing the candy shop skit and my first monologue was having a scene partner. Instead of being on my own, I could play off of Maddie’s reactions and focus on something that was actually happening rather that something that I had to imply by my own actions. I enjoyed adapting what was already a funny skit, the Monty Python Cheese Shop sketch, into something that fit our purposes better. We could add and subtract what we wanted and make it more of our own, rather than just reading what someone else had written. I had more to memorize than I did in my monologue, but there was also the additional challenge of remembering cues from the other person and knowing how and when to respond. It was much easier to remember sequences of conversation that remembering the list of candies, but I liked having them memorized rather than making them up on the spot, especially because some of them were cues for Maddie and I couldn’t repeat any. In places where I could have gotten around it on my own, anything that Maddie or I forgot would just confuse the other person and we would have to restart. The most challenging thing was getting angry enough at Maddie to maximize the comedic effect. I don’t normally express anger in that way and I felt awkward after a certain point. I still think I could have improved in that area, though I do think I was better in the final draft. I also didn’t have a lot of blocking to work with - Maddie was always going back and forth and checking things but I didn’t have much to do so most of the time I was in the same place. I think I did a good job with the ending, even if I sometimes couldn’t get the gun out right. My reaction to her hiding the candy felt more natural than the rest of the scene, when my reactions felt a little more forced, and I changed the way I said the last line in the final draft. I liked our additions to it that the cheese shop didn’t have. Overall, I learned more about the different techniques applied to monologues as opposed to partner scenes and gained more experience reacting to another actor on stage.

Review of Les Miserables

    Les Miserables, as presented by the Cheshire Academy theatre department, represents several different themes throughout the show. Though at first centered around the musical’s main protagonist, Jean Valjean, the plot soon branches off into several different directions and focuses on the intertwining stories of the people around him, without making it difficult to keep track of. Set in early 19th century France, the show opens with Valjean’s release from prison after serving nineteen years for stealing a loaf of bread and his subsequent escape attempts. After being denied his pay due to his time spent in prison, he is finally taken in by a kindly bishop, but repays him by stealing his silver for money. Once Valjean is caught, however, the bishop, rather than calling him out, maintains that he had made a gift of the silver and give him his silver candlesticks as well, thus “buying his soul for god”. Valjean is moved by this act of kindness and vows to be an honest man from there forth. This prologue is the premise for the rest of the story, which follows several characters though war, unrequited love, death, and revenge.

    Les Miserables focused on many themes, the most significant of which being love, death, and forgiveness. The way Valjean puts it, the bishop teaches him love when he spares him from being rearrested, and he carries this with him, saving Fantine from Javert and taking care of her daughter after her death, which Fantine acknowledges in the epilogue - “you raised my child in love”. Both the musical and the book represented love with a very religious aspect, making several references to God, including “to love another person is to see the face of God” and making it a bishop who saves Valjean. We did not emphasize this point so much as other productions might have. Death was also a constant presence in the show - starting with the death of Fantine and progressing through the deaths of Eponine, Enjolras and all of the students (including a young boy named Gavroche), Javert, and finally Jean Valjean and the very end, when all of the ghosts of the dead return to bring him presumably to heaven. Finally, forgiveness - Javert refuses to shake his belief of “once a thief forever a thief”, and when Valjean spares his life and shows him mercy he commits suicide. Valjean, on the other hand, forgives Javert, even though he was hunted by him for years, and is kind towards everyone.


The main set is of a bridge in front of a painted background of houses along a street and a river though the middle, but other settings are created by five three sided panels each painted a different way - one side is yellow, one is gray, and one is painted with a garden. The yellow side usually appears during happy scenes, at the inn during “Master of the House” and in the ABC Cafe, as the rest of the set is fairly dark. The one exception is during “Turning” and “Empty Chairs and Empty Tables”, because they are both sung at the ABC Cafe where the students used to meet, but after their deaths it becomes a reminder of how what once used to be a happy place has become sad. The gray background usually sets a sad/hopeless scene - the chain gang that Valjean worked with, and the hospital with Fantine, while the garden was at Valjean and Cosette’s house and was where they got married. The bridge scene usually was where the poor and the beggars were, and the barricade set the stage for the war and the death of the revolutionaries.

Sometimes the lighting would dim to focus on a certain character or interaction, like during the barricade scene when Valjean spoke to Javert as everyone else froze, or during “Bring him Home”. “Master of the House” on the hand had colorful lights to emphasize the festive mood of the inn.

Of the many talented actors and actresses in the show, the one that really stood out to me was Julia Rafferty as Fantine. Her singing was very powerful, especially during “I Dreamed a Dream”, and she was able to convey lots emotion despite her characters short life. The Thenardiers were also very funny, and I liked them a lot more than in other versions of Les Mis that I’ve seen. The first time I saw it, at the Bushnell, I wasn’t sure why they were supposed to be funny and I flat out just didn’t like the characters very much. But the way that Sam and Gianna portrayed them, the Thenardiers became likable and funny, despite being the antagonists of the play. They used a lot of physical comedy to exaggerate everything and get their point across.

    Overall I really enjoyed the show, both being in it and watching parts of it. Both the musical itself and the actors are the best that I have performed with, and it though it was a lot of work, it was very rewarding to do a completely sung through musical. I would recommend watching it to anyone who has heard of the show.

Candy Shop Skit

Short Comedic Monologue Final Draft and Reflection

The biggest challenge that I faced during my monologue was learning to make my character feel natural. In the beginning I had my character talking to an invisible friend beside her, which was kind of awkward because I was interacting with someone who wasn’t really there. The switch to talking of the phone made it much more realistic - I was still having a conversation with someone, but they didn’t have to be there next to me and we didn’t need to hear their response. This worked much better and taught me new ways to look at monologues that might make it appear more natural or make more sense.
    Another thing I had to work on was the gestures. I normally don’t gesture very much, and when I do I’m not usually paying attention to it, so to do it deliberately felt awkward at first and didn’t always fit with what I was saying. It was easier when I had my monologue memorized so that I didn’t have to think about what I was saying and could work on using my body more to emphasize it.
    Something I tried to work on was adding more emotion to my voice. In watching the video of my monologue I saw that my voice doesn’t always come out the way it sounds in my head. I tried to improve upon this during the finals draft but it still didn’t come out quite as I wanted it to.
    One thing that was difficult was balancing all the different aspects of of the monologue. It was easy to focus on one thing and then forget about the others - when I started working on my voice I wasn’t thinking about blocking or gestures, and it was hard to keep them all in mind. Once I got to know the monologue better it came together and I didn’t need to focus on one thing at a time.
    Memorization seemed difficult as I was doing it, but once I got it the first time I didn’t really have any trouble knowing the whole thing. Other than the first line, which I knew but kept losing at the last second, it came very easily.